Event

Seventh Avenue Walking Tour: A Progressive Vision

What began as a ten-acre, barren enclave owned by George W. Marston is now the shady and secluded 3500 block of Seventh Avenue, a cul-de-sac that is perfect for a 45-minute guided walking tour. This tour contains new content inspired by SOHO's celebration called Irving Gill: Progress & Poetry in Architecture. The Marston House Museum & Gardens is one of about ten homes on the street, built between 1905 and 1913. Many were designed by Gill, when he was a partner in Hebbard & Gill, and they illustrate his design progression from English Arts & Crafts to Prairie Style to his ultimate triumph, cubistic Early Modernism-all in the space of two years, 1905 and 1906.

Marston was San Diego's most prominent leader of the Progressive Movement. He, Gill, and other Progressives championed civil rights for African and Mexican Americans, women's suffrage, child labor laws, food and drug safety measures, while they opposed corruption, alcohol and vice. Gill translated Progressive values of good health through fresh air and contact with nature, cleanliness and sanitation, and incorporated labor saving devices into his architecture, including the Marston House.